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By Carolyn Cohn and Lawrence White
LONDON, June 15 (Reuters) - British challenger bank Metro
is in exclusive early stage talks to buy peer-to-peer
lender RateSetter, the bank said on Monday in response to media
speculation.
Metro Bank, one of the banks set up after the global
financial crisis to challenge established players such as
Barclays and RBS, was hit last year by an
accounting scandal that cost it its chairman and CEO and reduced
its market value by 90%.
The bank this year said it was cutting back growth plans
after plunging into the red.
Analysts said the deal would offer Metro a strong revenue
source in its push into unsecured consumer lending, on the basis
of the spread between RateSetter's charges to borrowers and the
amount it pays to lenders.
RateSetter will benefit from a capital injection as it
grapples with a surge in customers withdrawing funds.
RateSetter, launched in 2010, has grown to be one of
Britain's leading peer-to-peer platforms, although, like others,
it has struggled in recent months to honour promptly a high
volume of customers' withdrawal requests.
Some customers have waited up to three months rather than
the usual wait of a day or so.
RateSetter said it has delivered 55 million pounds ($68.93
million) in release requests since the start of the novel
coronavirus outbreak and was processing withdrawal requests in
chronological order.
A spokesman for the lender declined to comment on the merger
talks.
Peer-to-peer lending firms, which match lenders with
borrowers via online platforms, have grown steadily in Britain
since 2005, managing more than 5.3 billion pounds in 2019,
independent research firm 4thWay data shows.
However, some have struggled. Two firms - Lendy and Funding
Secure - collapsed in recent years, prompting the Financial
Conduct Authority to tighten regulation in June 2019.
Sky News reported the merger talks late on Sunday.
($1 = 0.7980 pounds)
(Reporting by Carolyn Cohn and Lawrence White;
editing by Rachel Armstrong and Barbara Lewis)
